One Truth Prevails
by Jordanna Morgan
Summary: A little collection of quickfics and character moments. (Note: these ficlets will draw almost exclusively on the canon covered by the Case Closed dub, using the associated names.)
1. Harley Visits

**Title:** Harley Visits  
 **Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
 **Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
 **Rating/Warnings:** G.  
 **Characters:** Jimmy (Conan), Harley, and Rachel.  
 **Setting:** General.  
 **Summary:** Three relationships, and three perspectives.  
 **Disclaimer:** They belong to Gosho Aoyama. I'm just playing with them.  
 **Notes:** Just a trio of musings on how these three characters view the relationships between them.

* * *

When Harley Hartwell called to say he would be in town, Rachel seemed unusually happy.

More than that, she went to great lengths to _look_ good. She rushed out to have her hair and nails done. She bought a new blouse.

"You sure seem _excited_ about Harley's visit," Conan remarked suspiciously when she returned. "Are you getting a _crush_ on him?"

"Of course not!" Blushing, Rachel sat beside Conan on the couch, and pulled him onto her lap to squeeze him. "I'll tell you the real reason, but it's between us, okay? It's just… the last few times _Jimmy_ showed up, Harley was also around. So I can hope this time too, can't I?"

Rachel was concerned when a pale and tight-lipped Conan had no appetite for dinner, and went to bed early that night.

* * *

As a teenaged professional rival, Jimmy Kudo had been an annoyance to Harley… but as a pint-sized prodigy, he was morbidly fascinating.

Kudo would talk freely to Harley when they were alone, just because Harley was one of the few people with whom he _could_. It probably should have been a little creepy—conversing with a child who spoke and acted like an uncannily brilliant adult. Conan Edogawa was like one of those kids in _Village of the Damned_. Only more sarcastic, and not blond.

The thing was, somehow it _fit_. Because in Conan, Harley could see the person he had only briefly glimpsed in the flesh—but in a form that was far less threatening to his ego, and even strangely appealing.

Had Harley met Kudo first, he wasn't sure he ever could have liked him.

But he did like _Conan_.

* * *

It was funny how Conan had taken to Harley, ever since the debacle of that Sherlock Holmes mystery tour.

Rachel couldn't pin it down exactly. Around Harley, Conan seemed to relax in a subtle way that he normally never did. He was still focused and serious, as was in his peculiar nature; but it was as if he felt less pressure to _not_ be serious.

Maybe it was because Harley never talked down to Conan. For a teenager, he had an amazing way with the younger boy. Not that Conan ever really behaved much like a _normal_ child his age, anyway—but perhaps that was the point. Harley played along and treated Conan like the little adult he acted, or disappeared with him somewhere to spend quality time together.

Once or twice, Rachel attempted to treat Conan so earnestly. Yet when _she_ did it, he would hastily become his most childish—and then quickly remember all of a sudden that he had something to do elsewhere.

It hurt just a little that Conan wouldn't let her in like that. Still, she was glad Harley had somehow managed to connect with him.

Of course, a guy who would prescribe Chinese liquor for an eight-year-old with a headcold was probably no great role model… but at least he couldn't be any worse than _Dad_.

* * *

 _© 2015 Jordanna Morgan_


	2. Young Cuss

**Title:** Young Cuss  
 **Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
 **Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
 **Rating/Warnings:** G.  
 **Characters:** Jimmy (Conan) and Richard.  
 **Setting:** Sometime early in the series.  
 **Summary:** Conan accidentally encounters Richard's softer side.  
 **Disclaimer:** They belong to Gosho Aoyama. I'm just playing with them.  
 **Notes:** Just for fun. A treat ficlet for Rosencrantz in the 2015 Trick Or Treat Exchange.

* * *

One thing's for sure, I've had an _interesting_ home life since I was shrunken to the form of a child. This charade as Conan Edogawa has led me on some pretty wild adventures, tripping up murderers, thieves, and kidnappers—but I don't think anything has ever weirded me out so much as the little "bonding experience" I just had with my reluctant host, Richard.

Picture this. I was sitting on my bed, concentrating on the code I found written on a torn scrap of paper at a robbery scene. (Because, as usual, we just happened to be a block away when the crime went down. I'm starting to wonder whether it's Richard or me who attracts these things… not that I'm really complaining. Or I _wouldn't_ be, if we'd actually stumble across a lead on the guys who left me like this.) Anyway, it's a tough problem cracking this complex code with only a small portion to go on. I was getting pretty frustrated—so I let loose with some words that most people _my_ size are definitely not supposed to say.

…And then, hearing a little choked noise, I looked up to see Richard gawking at me from the doorway.

Yeah, I know, I should have had the door closed. But Rachel had gone off to the store, and as far as I knew, Richard was in his usual condition. Who would've guessed he'd choose _that_ moment to wake up from his drunken stupor and come down the hall?

So there stood the old-timer, staring at me with bugging eyes and a wide-open mouth. His ears were practically twitching from what he'd just heard… and then he _guffawed_. He swaggered into the room and slapped me on the back, almost knocking me off the bed.

" _Ha_! …Think I'm startin' ta have a little more _respect_ for ya, kid. Not ta worry, Rachel won't hear 'bout this from me. Just don't say things like that in fronta _her_ , 'er she'll have _both_ our hides…"

He smiled chummily, and for a second there, I really thought he was going to invite me to have a beer.

So what's a presumed eight-year-old to do? I pasted on my broadest kiddie grin, and nodded wildly. "Uh… right!"

" _Heh_." Richard smirked conspiratorially, reaching out a big hand. It managed to land _mostly_ on top of my head, and he ruffled my hair—with all the gentleness of a mauling tiger, leaving my glasses skewed. Then he left me to massage the feeling back into my scalp, and staggered away to the hall again, heading for the bathroom.

I glared down at that jumble of code on the paper, and said a few more grown-up words for good measure. Just because, for a moment, I got a sneaky enjoyment out of the feeling that I _could_ —at least when Rachel isn't around.

Richard Moore is a _terrible_ father… but on occasion, he's not such a bad guy.

* * *

 _© 2015 Jordanna Morgan_


	3. Bedtime Story

**Title:** Bedtime Story  
 **Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
 **Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
 **Rating/Warnings:** G.  
 **Characters:** Jimmy (Conan) and Rachel.  
 **Setting:** The night after Jimmy's age was regressed.  
 **Summary:** Jimmy receives an unexpected comfort while facing his first nights as Conan.  
 **Disclaimer:** "Detective Conan/Case Closed" belongs to Gosho Aoyama.  
 **Notes:** Just a rather random idea that came to me. It fills the prompt of _nightmares_ at Hurt/Comfort Bingo.

* * *

On my first night as Conan Edogawa, I slept on the Moores' living-room sofa. By the time we returned from the Tanner kidnapping case, it was too late at night to think of any other arrangement—and I was too exhausted to _care_ where I passed out. My child body had reached the end of its stamina, and I was aching from the bruised ribs and strained ankle the kidnapper had dealt me.

Unfortunately, my sleep was none too restful. I dreamed of sinister men in black, and finding myself in an even more gigantic world where I was no bigger than an ant. At least once I must have cried out, because I woke up to find Rachel kneeling beside me… and in my drowsy confusion, I forgot for a moment that I wasn't _Jimmy_ to her anymore. It was just lucky that I didn't say anything to give myself away before I remembered the situation.

Seeing her worry about me over a bad dream was the hardest thing I had experienced yet since I changed.

The next day, Rachel started cleaning out a spare room Richard used for storage. The job was still only half-done by evening, leaving the space stacked with boxes of old case files… not that I minded that. I wanted nothing more than the chance to dig through those files before they were cleared away, in the hope of finding a lead on the goons who fed me that poison.

Rachel declared my bedtime that night much earlier than my mind would have liked—but after my first hellish day back in elementary school, my little body felt otherwise. I gave in and shuffled off to my new room, where I settled into a makeshift bed of blankets and pillows on the floor.

As I lay thinking futilely about my predicament, there was a tap on the door. To my surprise, Rachel stepped in, carrying something half-hidden behind her back.

Trying not to look _too_ startled, I hastily snatched up the prop glasses I had set aside. "Rachel?"

"Hey, Conan." She smiled at me. It was so different from the way she once smiled at my _real_ self. "Listen. I know it's a little rough getting used to a strange place—especially after you went through something so scary with that kidnapper last night. So I thought… maybe you'd like it if I read you a bedtime story, to help you fall asleep." Almost sheepishly, she revealed a dog-eared book. "I don't have a lot of stuff left over from when I was little, but I did find _Aesop's Fables_. I remember how I always used to like these."

The gentle offer left my face burning and my heart pounding. I'd never imagined I could feel so embarrassed and so deeply moved all at once.

"Uh… _wha_?"

Without waiting for a more articulate reply than that, Rachel merely sat down on the floor beside me. She ruffled my hair, and opening the book, she began to read aloud from its pages.

Slowly, the flame in my cheeks burned out. It was replaced by a smile that hurt—but not in a _bad_ way. I tried not to let Rachel see it as I relaxed into the pillows, closing my eyes to concentrate on the sound of her voice. I'd never realized before how tender and warm it could be.

As I drifted away into sleep, it didn't matter what her words were, or even who she believed she was talking to.

I just felt glad I was still alive to hear her.

* * *

 _© 2015 Jordanna Morgan_


	4. Tomorrow

**Title:** Tomorrow  
 **Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
 **Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
 **Rating/Warnings:** G.  
 **Characters:** Jimmy (Conan).  
 **Setting:** General.  
 **Summary:** Jimmy stares at the phone and searches for courage.  
 **Disclaimer:** "Detective Conan/Case Closed" belongs to Gosho Aoyama.  
 **Notes:** Simply another random musing on the dilemmas of Jimmy's life.

* * *

It was a sunny afternoon, and I was sitting on a park bench, staring hard at the cellphone that lay next to me.

The phone was not Conan's. It was Jimmy's.

I probably should have picked a much less visible place to call Rachel, considering it would involve the use of my voice changer. Maybe I was subconsciously hoping the Junior Detective League would run by, and drag me into some misadventure—giving me an excuse to put off this task until tomorrow. Because I had already been sitting there for half an hour, trying to work up the will.

What Rachel hoped for every day was the one thing I most dreaded.

It killed me a little inside each time. The usually-brief outbursts of anger at my "absence" were bad enough; but they were far from the worst of what came across the line. The worst was that little quiver in her voice when she cried, and the inevitable plea of _When are you coming home_ … and after we'd gone in the typical circles of her demands and my excuses, the _sound_ of the bravely accepting smile she forced until it broke.

I wanted so desperately to tell her that I _was_ home: right beside her all this time, closer than I'd ever been before. I wanted to tell her that I was watching over her, that I would _protect_ her. I wanted…

I wanted to wake up from this whole impossible mess, and be _myself_ again—for _her_.

Very slowly, I reached for the phone. With a numb feeling in my too-small fingers, I picked it up… and slid it into a pocket of my backpack.

It was one of those days when, if I made the call, I knew I couldn't trust myself not to say too much.

 _Tomorrow_.

Tomorrow I would call Rachel, just to reassure her that Jimmy Kudo hadn't forgotten her. Tomorrow I would fumble for lies about where I was and what I had been doing. Tomorrow I would force myself to face up to her hurt and reproach—made all the sharper by the fact that I knew I _deserved_ it.

…Or tomorrow I would sit with the phone heavy in my hands for another half-hour, only to decide on _tomorrow_ once again.

I ran away so much more often than even Rachel knew.

* * *

 _© 2015 Jordanna Morgan_


	5. Scary Movie Musings

**Title:** Scary Movie Musings  
 **Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
 **Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
 **Rating/Warnings:** G.  
 **Characters:** Doctor Agasa and Conan.  
 **Setting:** General.  
 **Summary:** Conan speculates after watching a horror movie.  
 **Disclaimer:** "Detective Conan/Case Closed" belongs to Gosho Aoyama.  
 **Notes:** Just a couple of random thoughts that turned into an exchange between Conan and Agasa.

* * *

"And how was your afternoon, Jimmy?" Doctor Agasa asked, smiling crookedly at the beleaguered boy who trudged into his laboratory.

The nominal Conan Edogawa dropped his backpack on the floor, heaving himself onto Agasa's futon with a windy sigh. "Just _great_. I've spent the last two hours watching the Junior Detectives get scared silly by a horror movie. After all they've gone through following _me_ around, you'd think they wouldn't be so impressed by _fake_ blood anymore." He flung one arm across his eyeglasses. "It was Amy who insisted on watching it—and she was the worst of them all. She spent the _whole movie_ hiding under my arm!"

Agasa let out an abrupt chuckle. "That Amy really is the cleverest one of the bunch…"

"What was that, Doc?"

"Oh, nothing."

Frowning, Conan lowered his arm from his eyes and stared up toward the ceiling. Agasa pulled his safety goggles down from his forehead, and returned his attention to the new gadget he was tinkering with. A comfortable silence held the room for several minutes.

"You know, Doc… I wonder if my body would revert back to my real age if I died."

The remark was utterly random—and rather unsettling. Agasa laid aside his soldering iron, fixing a concerned gaze upon Conan. With his arms folded behind his head, the age-regressed teen prodigy looked thoughtful and serious, and so like the Jimmy of old.

"Why, Jimmy, that's a little morbid, don't you think?"

Glancing sideways, Conan assumed a wry expression. "I guess that's what watching _Blood of the Nightbeast IV_ will do for you." He shrugged. "But you know how werewolves in old horror movies always change back to their human form at the end, after they finally get shot by a silver bullet? It just makes me wonder… if the effect of the poison that made me like this would die with me."

"I wouldn't know." Agasa stepped from behind his work table, drawing closer to look firmly at his young friend. "But let's not ever _think_ about testing that hypothesis, my boy. I'd rather find a solution to your current state that keeps you very much among the living."

Sitting up, Conan gave the inventor a smile that was filled with determination and confidence.

"Don't worry, Doc—that makes two of us. After all, even as a kid, I've still got way too much to live _for_."

* * *

 _© 2015 Jordanna Morgan_


	6. You Didn't Say How Far!

**Title:** You Didn't Say How Far!  
 **Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
 **Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
 **Rating/Warnings:** G.  
 **Characters:** Jimmy (Conan), Rachel, and the Junior Detective League.  
 **Setting:** General.  
 **Summary:** Some games are easier to escape than others… or maybe not.  
 **Disclaimer:** "Detective Conan/Case Closed" belongs to Gosho Aoyama.  
 **Notes:** Written for the prompt "Hide And Seek" at Fan Flashworks.

* * *

"Seven… eight… nine… eleven…"

Behind the diminutive face of Conan Edogawa, Jimmy Kudo rolled his eyes and watched his would-be playmates scatter. After all the times he had been shanghaied into playing this silly game with them, he still couldn't grasp the attraction hide-and-seek held—even for _actual_ children. What was the fun of running off to crouch in some dark, stuffy spot until another kid came along and found you?

He could at least see the appeal of being the seeker, he mused. It was a crude exercise in satisfying the same primal instinct that made killers—and _detectives_ —enjoy the hunt. However, it was lackluster when the prey was so far beneath his intellectual level. Besides, George had long since declared that Conan wasn't allowed to do the seeking anyway, because he was just too _good_ at it.

With a shake of his head, Conan turned and sauntered away… on a course that took him out of the park entirely.

* * *

Half an hour later, Rachel found the boy quietly reading on the couch in her father's office.

"Oh, I didn't expect to see you home yet. I thought you were still out playing with your friends!"

"I _am_ ," Conan replied, looking up from his book to smile cheekily. "They'll get to have _fun_ looking for me the whole rest of the afternoon!"

Unfortunately, his smugness was short-lived—because the shrill scolding Rachel gave him about his treatment of his friends drove him straight back to the park again.

* * *

 _2016 Jordanna Morgan_


	7. Hands Off

**Title:** Hands Off  
 **Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
 **Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
 **Rating/Warnings:** G.  
 **Characters:** Jimmy (Conan).  
 **Setting:** General.  
 **Summary:** Jimmy muses on one of the more troublesome issues of having a child's body.  
 **Disclaimer:** "Detective Conan/Case Closed" belongs to Gosho Aoyama.  
 **Notes:** Written for the prompt "Numbers" at Fan Flashworks. (Because Conan references weight and height. It's kind of a stretch, but this prompt was not my friend.)

* * *

I swear, if I ever have a kid when I _finally_ make it to some kind of normal adulthood, I'll always _ask_ him before I physically pick him up.

Yeah, it sounds silly, but that's one of my takeaways from being a teenager in a child's body—because I've found out that when you're thirty-six pounds and three feet tall on tiptoe, people have the funny idea that you're portable. I'm _always_ getting scooped up and manhandled. It's one of the biggest indignities of my situation. It can also be really uncomfortable, with hands ending up in some awkward places to support my weight.

…Okay, so my squirming and fighting to be put down may sometimes have a lot to do with that. But _still_.

Getting picked up without my consent is usually just annoying, like when Richard tosses me away from a crime scene I'm trying to examine. On the other hand, my easily-handled size can be downright dangerous. More than once I've found myself in the grasp of a killer… and in those moments, having a grown-up mind doesn't help much. No matter _who_ I really am, there's an instinctive, terrifying feeling of helplessness about being so small and weak in the hands of someone who I know has already taken a life.

Well, at least until I remember that I've got Doctor Agasa's gadgets on my side. I might criticize some of the Doc's lesser strokes of genius, but he's saved my life more times than I can count.

In spite of all that, though, none of those things are really the most terrible part of being small enough to tote around.

The worst part, believe it or not, is when _Rachel_ picks me up. Because…

Because that's the _best_ thing as well as the worst.

It's _embarrassing_ to be lifted off the ground by the girl I love; but at the same time, it's wonderful. It's wonderful to feel her hold me close, the way I wanted but never had the courage to express before I was shrunk. It's wonderful to feel her warmth and her heartbeat… and even to feel the real affection she has for the little boy she thinks I am.

Yet it also hurts, because it's not the way it's supposed to be.

I should be the one who can pick her up in _my_ arms. When her heartbeat is pressed to mine, I should feel it quicken with the _different_ love she's confessed she feels for my _true_ self too.

But that isn't possible yet… so for now, I can only make the best of what I still have.

That's why, when it's Rachel who picks me up and holds me, I hold onto her too—as tight as I can.

* * *

 _2016 Jordanna Morgan_


	8. Kick

**Title:** Kick  
 **Author:** Jordanna Morgan  
 **Archive Rights:** Please request the author's consent.  
 **Rating/Warnings:** G.  
 **Characters:** Jimmy (Conan) and Doctor Agasa.  
 **Setting:** General.  
 **Summary:** Doctor Agasa really should put warning labels on his creations.  
 **Disclaimer:** "Detective Conan/Case Closed" belongs to Gosho Aoyama.  
 **Notes:** Written for the prompt word "Ball" at Fan Flashworks.

* * *

"Hey, Doc… Are you home?"

As Conan Edogawa walked into Doctor Agasa's laboratory, silence was the only response. The boy looked around the room, taking in the usual disarray of machine parts and test tubes, but he saw no sign of his inventor friend.

Then his eye was drawn to something that sat prominently in a clearer space on the countertop: a soccer ball, shiny and brand-new.

Conan's eyebrows rose behind his glasses. He _had_ just recently complained to the old man about how store-bought soccer balls didn't stand up well to being kicked with his super-sneakers. Of course he didn't cheat that way when he was really _playing_ , but on those tricky occasions during a case when a ball was his most convenient available weapon… Well, the last ball he'd kicked at a gun-wielding kidnapper did the job of knocking away the weapon, but it was certainly never going to see action on the pitch again.

Maybe Agasa had been inspired to design a new ball for Conan, made of some space-age material that would survive the enhanced force of his kicks. Smiling at the idea, the young detective pushed a stool over to the counter, and clambered up to retrieve what was _obviously_ meant to be a gift for him.

When Conan picked it up, the ball felt just slightly heavier than a normal one. He approved of its feeling of solidness in his hands: this would indeed make a more sturdy projectile if need be. Carefully he squirmed down off the stool, and stood rolling the ball back and forth between his palms as he continued to appraise it. There were no markings or brand names, but that stood to reason if Agasa had made it himself.

After a long moment, Conan decided to give the ball a proper test—although _without_ the use of his sneakers. A regular kick would give him a perfectly good read of its buoyancy and bounce.

Holding it out at arm's length, he sharply drop-kicked it toward the far wall.

" _Jimmy, no_!"

Agasa's voice.

The diminutive sleuth's next awareness was of being seized in someone's arms and tumbled to the floor. The much greater weight of an adult body crashed down over him; and at the same moment, there was a thunderous _boom_ from the other side of the lab.

In the deafening silence that followed, Conan could only hear his ears ringing. An acrid smell of smoke reached him as he coughed and crawled out from under Doctor Agasa's ample figure. Behind him, the groaning inventor sat up more slowly.

Across the room, there was now a gaping hole at _exactly_ the point in the wall where Conan had kicked the ball to.

"My boy," Agasa muttered woefully, "the next time, maybe you should _ask_ me before you try to test out one of my inventions."

* * *

 _2016 Jordanna Morgan_


End file.
